You probably noticed the bizarre cut that censored the last sentence of Sally Field's moving tribute to the mothers of those in war. Here's what she was trying to say: "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamned wars in the first place."

You can argue she was censored because she used the word "goddamned" or you can argue she was censored because Fox isn't too terribly keen on an anti-war political statement being made on its time. More fuel for the debate over whether Fox is evil how evil Fox is.

United States Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker is trying to draw more attention to what is an open secret in Washington: America is screwing up the refugee situation in Iraq, big time.

He wrote a sensitive but unclassified memo called "Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?" I'm sure the recipients were familiar with these facts:

About 2 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq, and an estimated 2.2 million more have fled to Syria, Jordan and other neighboring countries, where they are straining local resources and threatening to destabilize host communities, the United Nations has reported. With 60,000 Iraqis fleeing their homes each month, Jordan largely closed its borders to Iraqis earlier this year, and Syria said yesterday that it will begin requiring visas for Iraqis at the conclusion of Ramadan next month, essentially closing off exit routes from the country.

And they're probably also aware of this:

Since February, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees has referred about 10,000 Iraqis to the U.S. refugee program. The State Department, however, has admitted just 829 Iraqis this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and officials caution that they may admit only about 1,750 by the end of the year.

Since 2003, the year of the U.S. invasion, the United States has admitted 1,521 Iraqi refugees.

So Crocker thinks a little public shaming might help remind the United States government of its responsibility to those fleeing the country it wrecked. I wish him the best of luck.

Blackwater has been run out of Iraq. Following an attack on a State Department convoy Sunday, Blackwater contractors serving as guards opened fire in a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, killing eight civilians and wounding 13. The behavior may not be characteristic of contractors, exactly, but it certainly plays into the stereotype of them as brutish mercenaries unconstrained by the law or the rules of war.

And while the incident may not lead to charges of any kind — contractors are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as soldiers are, nor are they subject to prosecution under Iraqi law — it has gotten Blackwater's license revoked.

''We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory," said Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf, according to the New York Times.

So the American government, which employs Blackwater contractors by the hundreds (and possibly by the thousands), will have to find new forces to guard convoys and escort dignitaries. Might be a good opportunity to use an Iraqi firm.

So lock that endorsement up. Clark is a big-time favorite of the netroots: he was a star at Yearly Kos and routinely does well in self-commissioned polls of the Daily Kos community. Will his endorsement help Clinton amongst the netroots? She trails in the Democratic field with those folks.

ABC News has sent a producer to Pakistan as part of its second investigation into reports involving Mr. Debat. One report it is re-examining concerned a guerrilla organization called Jundullah, which, ABC reported in April, had the support of the United States and Pakistan for operations that led to the kidnapping and murder of several Iranian officials.

Pakistani officials ferociously denied the report, calling it "an absurd and sinister insinuation." ABC announced that it was standing by its reporting and quoted Mr. Debat, saying that he had "just returned from the region." Brian Ross, the correspondent who worked most closely with Mr. Debat, said the Jundullah story had many sources.

"We're only worried about the things Debat supplied, not about the substance of that story," he said.

Does Ross really dismiss the importance of whether the substance of what he reported is true?

That US is backing the Jundullah story represents among the most problematic of the Debat-Ross collaborations. And it's no small matter perhaps that Ross's name is on it.

My annotated version of that story (Brian Ross and Christopher Isham, "The Secret War Against Iran," ABC, April 3, 2007) suggests that the key allegations in the piece were sourced by Mr. Debat, ABC used Debat as a confirming expert analyst in the piece for dubious information he himself supplied, and that other sources cited in the piece deny the basic gist of the report.

Are Debat's interviews with tribal sources -- which form the very essence of this report -- any more real than his interviews with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Nancy Pelosi, and Kofi Annan? The evidence says no. History shows no. Knowledgeable regional experts say no. That people who fabricate something as easily, provably deniable as an interview with Senators and presidential candidates and the UN Secretary General cannot be trusted to be telling the truth about what the Pakistani tribal sources are telling them is, of course, obvious. The capacity for an extraordinary degree of mendacity demonstrated by Debat claiming to have conducted such high profile fake interviews speaks for itself.

Notice no where in the above report does a US or other official confirm what Debat is providing and the story is asserting. And that ABC used Debat as the channeled reporter on the main substance of the piece, providing the information from the tribal sources, and then featured him as a confirming commenter/analyst in the report. It's a sleight of hand an ordinary viewer might not have noticed, but nevertheless not worthy of a serious news organization that cares about telling its viewers and readers the truth.

In other words, if you remove the information provided by Mr. Debat in this report, and his presence in the report as an expert analyst, there would be nothing there but background information on Jundullah, and U.S. officials denying the report.

Update: Spoke with Brian Ross, who says that "I feel very comfortable very with the thrust of that [Jundullah] report. ... We really did have a number of U.S. and European government sources who walked us through that story, which essentially is the US is not funding that group, but is offering advice and guidance and is in contact with that group." He couldn't provide more details on the record but could say that "We feel comfortable wih sources not from Debat that the U.S. has at least contact with and communication with that group on an ongoing basis ... to help fight al Qaeda."

One of the most rewarding things about working for Mother Jones magazine is when you get to see one of our articles make a difference in the legal system. Yesterday the Boston Globereported that our current issue's cover story "School of Shock," which documents how the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) uses electric shock to punish its students, "has reignited efforts to pass legislation limiting the facility's use of skin shock and aversive therapy."

Massachusetts state senator Brian A. Joyce, whom we interviewed for the story, has circulated a copy of the piece to every state legislator and is working to push up hearings, originally scheduled for January 2008, on existing legislation that would curb the use of the skin shock device and create a regulatory commission. And as we blogged last month, the Chancellor for D.C. schools opened an investigation into the JRC's use of electric shock.

AP reports: "O.J. Simpson says he only went into a casino hotel room to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect Friday in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga."

Bottom-line: barring a major reversal of political trends, Democrats not only are poised to build on the narrow Senate majority they surprisingly captured in the 2006 election, they could substantially expand it.

They're going to need a substantial expansion. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done, due to procedural rules, and a 51-member majority, when one of those members is Joe Lieberman, just isn't going to cut it. The vulnerable seats:

Virginia, where Republican John Warner is leaving and Democrat Mark Warner (no relation) will mount a strong challenge.

Nebraska, where Republican Chuck Hagel is leaving and Democrat Bob Kerrey will mount a strong challenge if he gets in.

Colorado, where Republican Wayne Allard is leaving and Democrat Mark Udall will mount a strong challenge.

And Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Oregon, where Republican incumbents are particularly vulnerable.

That's seven states. Then you've got a bunch where a Republican incumbent is kinda sorta vulnerable: New Mexico, Alaska, and Kentucky. No promises there, but still: looking good, folks.

See my report on questions about how ABC handled the Debat matter here. In the meantime, I have more questions for ABC:

How did ABC choose to use Debat as a consultant, and also on the blog as a reporter, also sometimes citing him as a source?

Did ABC inform its viewers and readers that Debat had a Pentagon contract? How clear was ABC in telling readers/viewers about Debat's multiple paid affiliations?

What other consultants have this sort of arrangement with ABC? Will ABC be more transparent in the future about whether its sources are being paid, what are the relevant other potential conflicts of interest in terms of paid other appointments and contracts?

Why is ABC only sending an investigator to Pakistan to investigate Debat's reports now? History shows that people who misreprsent their resumes tend to misrepresent lots of other things as well. Why do my sources say ABC did not conduct a more extensive investigation of his work when it asked him to resign back in June? Why had it not contacted until now other reporters who could help investigate his reports?

In vetting or second sourcing the information that Alexis brought to the network, were ABC News resources outside of the Ross unit deployed? e.g. the Justice, State or Pentagon correspondents?

Did Alexis ever appear on camera as an expert/analyst for a story on which he was also the source?

How was he hired? Who introduced him to ABC?

How is ABC investigating the information that Alexis reported from Iran and Pakistan? Is it being investigated by the Ross unit only or reporters outside of that unit?

One good thing has according to sources apparently come of the recent reports, including Riche's. Finally, three months after dismissing him, ABC finally appears to be undertaking a serious investigation of the accuracy of the reports. It's just curious it didn't do so when it learned of misrepresentations with his CV back in June when it asked him to resign.